Research overview

My research area focuses on medieval French and Occitan literature and I have mainly been working on concepts of difference, identity and race between the twelfth-fourteenth centuries. I am currently working on a monograph stemming from my doctoral thesis, which focused on the figure of the Saracen as found in medieval literary works and was entitled: ‘Representing the Saracen: Identity, Race and Religious Difference in Medieval French and Occitan Literature’. Drawing upon modern theories of performativity, it argued that the malleable nature of Saracen identity was often acknowledged and even exploited in literature, to the extent that it could be constructed by narrative processes and stylistic techniques as well as social conventions.

More recently, my work on intercultural contact has also begun to take me away from identities and towards space, geography and travel. I am particularly interested in networks of movement and interaction beyond East-West lines between the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries.